BRIEF REPORT
                    TRIANGLES: THE “GLUE” OF BOWEN FAMILY 
                             SYSTEMS THEORY 
                          Patricia A. Comella, JD
               Bowen family systems theory is a descriptive theory about emotional 
               process in the human species. The theory describes several interlock-
               ing concepts. This paper presents a brief discussion of the concept 
               of the “triangle,” which was critical to integration of the theory. 
               Until Bowen “saw” the centrality of triangles to emotional process, 
               integration of the theory eluded him. Once Bowen saw triangles, he 
               “became a different person.” The paper also offers several compara-
               tive examples from the realm of human and nonhuman behavior to 
               illustrate the concept of the triangle.
                             IntroductIon
                 urray  Bowen  (1913-1990)  devoted  over  forty  years  to  
             Mobserving emotional process in the human species, developing 
             concepts to describe that process, integrating the concepts stem-
             ming from those observations into a coherent theory, and testing the 
             theory that bears his name with hundreds of human families. Bowen 
             family systems theory examines the human as an emotional species 
             whose members have instincts for self-preservation and reproduc-
             tion, interest in their own well-being, a capacity for living together 
             in complex relationship systems, a capacity for distinguishing fact 
             from imagination, and a capacity for choice. Many of the patterns 
             of behavior observed in humans in their relationship systems also 
             seem to be present in other animal societies.
                 In its present form Bowen theory is the integration of the con-
             cepts of differentiation of self, triangles, nuclear family emotional 
             system, family projection process, multigenerational transmission 
             process, sibling position, emotional cutoff,  and societal regression 
             into a coherent theory about human emotional functioning (Bowen 
             1978, Kerr and Bowen 1988).  Integration of the concepts into a co-
             herent theory did not occur overnight. It was not until August 1966, 
             about two decades into his quest for a science of human behavior, that 
             Bowen discovered the “glue” that cemented the concepts together 
             Ms. comella is on the faculty of the Georgetown Family center.
             © Georgetown Family center, 2001
                                  67
                            68	           									      									     									Family	SyStemS						               																			          	 	 	 	 	 2001
                             into an integrated theory about emotional process in the human 
                             species. that glue was the concept of triangles. 
                                        once Bowen “saw” triangles, he “became a different person,”(Kerr 
                             and Bowen,  379) and ”finally knew one way through the impenetrable 
                             thicket which is the family emotional process.” (380, italics in original). 
                             Defining his family in terms of triangles and interlocking triangles 
                             and making contact with “every important triangle in the family,” 
                             he brought representatives from all of those triangles together “in 
                             one living room” in 1967. “By the time this new meeting was thirty 
                             minutes old,” Bowen knew he had the key to understanding family 
                             emotional process (379).
                                                                      WhAt Is A trIAnGle?
                                        A triangle may be defined as the smallest emotional unit in 
                             which the stresses of living together can be managed at a given level 
                             of intensity, which varies from individual to individual and also with 
                             time and circumstances. A triangle is a three-individual system. the 
                             fundamental triangle in human social systems is a child and its two 
                             parents or primary caretakers. In this triangle, the child learns basic 
                             patterns of adapting to life’s challenges and assumes a functioning 
                             position in relation to the parents. the emotional maturity of the 
                             parents in managing the intensity of the emotional process in the 
                             marital relationship will strongly influence the degree to which the 
                             child will be able to function as a separate self, rather than as an 
                             appendage of the parents and stabilizer of the marital relationship. 
                             In the triangle with the child, the parents, within limits, are able to 
                             manage the stresses of the marital relationship. 
                                        After years of research, Bowen came to regard the triangle as a 
                             fact of life. until he “saw” the relationship of mother, father and child, 
                             he was not able to explain fully enough the individual behavior and 
                             functioning he was observing. Before seeing the relationship among 
                             mother, father and child, he was not able to understand the intensity 
                             and persistence of the attachment between mother and child. seeing 
                             the relationship among the three explained the functioning positions 
                             of each in maintaining the stability and persistence of the relationship 
                             system and the difficulty in achieving fundamental shifts toward 
                             greater flexibility in making the choices to meet life’s challenges. 
                             seeing the triangle as part of a multigenerational process helped to 
                             explain the intensity of emotional process being observed.
                                        Through his work at the Menninger Clinic and at the National 
                             Institute of Mental health, Bowen ultimately came to understand 
                            Vol.	6,	No.	1	         	          																BrieF	report	     																																		69
                            triangles and interlocking triangles as basic building blocks of the 
                            social systems to which humans belong. these systems include the 
                            family and the workplace, as well as the larger society (Bowen 1978). 
                            Triangles and interlocking triangles reflect the proposition that to 
                            understand individual behavior and functioning it is necessary to 
                            understand the context—the relationship system—in which the basic 
                            patterns of functioning are laid down.
                                     What makes triangles  so  central  to  social  systems?  Social 
                            systems are purposeful systems. they contribute to the well-be-
                            ing and sometimes survival of the members. Members coordinate 
                            and cooperate in making the system work and endure. They have 
                            functioning positions within the system and enter into reciprocal 
                            relationships with one another, in which the functioning of one can 
                            only be understood in the context of the relationship with the other. 
                            However, living and working together involve stress, even under 
                            the best of circumstances. no individual can have his own way all of 
                            the time. Maintaining the well-being of the system requires give and 
                            take. Under conditions of relative scarcity members must cooperate 
                            and coordinate with competitors for access to resources—and almost 
                            anything can be a resource! simply put, triangles help individuals 
                            to manage the stresses of living together (comella 1997).
                                     Membership in a social system carries with it inescapable 
                            costs in the form of membership-induced stress, which engenders 
                            automatic responses to threat. the stress may vary from member to 
                            member and may change with time, but it is endemic to the system. 
                            When a living organism forms an appraisal of threat, it responds 
                            automatically (ledoux 1996). Bowen called response to threat “anxi-
                            ety.” Anxiety is unavoidable and is a cost of membership. the stress 
                            is highest in two-individual relationships where the relationships 
                            have special importance to survival or well- being. A way of manag-
                            ing the intensity of the emotional process and the level of stress is 
                            by converting the two-individual relationship to a three-individual 
                            relationship. doing so lowers the intensity of the emotional process 
                            between the two by diffusing it into the larger three-person system. 
                            It makes the relationship more manageable, more bearable, and more 
                            durable. Presumably, the triangle preserves the benefits in sufficient 
                            measure while ameliorating the relationship-induced costs. In this 
                            manner, triangles contribute to the survival of the social system and 
                            the well-being of its members.
                                     consider life within reproductive units (harems) of the gelada 
                            baboon, where comfortable twosomes may ameliorate conditions 
                            within the social groups. (dunbar 1984.) harems are headed by an 
                            70	           									      									     									Family	SyStemS						               																			          	 	 	 	 	 2001
                             adult male (the harem-master) and may include one or two younger 
                             male followers not yet physically mature enough to secure mastership 
                             for themselves, or older male  followers who have lost mastership. 
                             despite their premier status as sires of offspring during their tenure, 
                             harem-masters do not “call the shots” when it comes to social struc-
                             ture or harem size: the females do. the female dominance hierarchy 
                             affects female access to the harem-master and fertility. Females gain 
                             advantage through partnerships, particularly enduring ones between 
                             mothers and elder daughters, and thereby accomplish together what 
                             they could not accomplish alone in the female dominance hierarchy. 
                             Although described as coalitions, the partnerships have meaning 
                             only when viewed in the context of the advantages the partners gain 
                             through their association vis a vis other members of the reproductive 
                             unit. 
                                        de Waal (1989a) describes life in a captive colony of chimpan-
                             zees, a naturally “closed” social system because emigration is not an 
                             option available to the captives to manage their relationships with 
                             each other. two young chimpanzees, members of the colony, were 
                             playing together. As so often happens among playmates, they got 
                             into a squabble. the mothers of the two were watching and becoming 
                             increasingly uncomfortable. one mother summoned a third female, 
                             Mama, who had a history of peaceful interventions. The peacemaker 
                             separated the two young chimpanzees. neither was hurt and the 
                             relationship between the mothers remained undisturbed.
                                        the therapeutic relationship is yet another example of a tri-
                             angle. Freud postulated that in the relationship with the therapist, 
                             an  individual  would  automatically  replicate  a  significant  early 
                             relationship (the transference). the therapist had the potential to 
                             act out significant past relationships in a countertransference. In 
                             other words, the seemingly dyadic relationship between therapist 
                             and patient could not be fully understood without reference to the 
                             relationships “transferred” or “counter-transferred” into the thera-
                             pist-patient relationship. underlying the therapeutic application of 
                             Bowen theory is the premise that if one member of a family system 
                             enters into relationship with a neutral therapist (vis a vis the family 
                             issues), who avoids a countertransference, the individual can relate 
                             to members of the family differently. thus, the individual’s relation-
                             ships with family members can be conceptualized as triangles that 
                             include the neutral therapist.
                                        Here are a few other examples of triangles and interlocking 
                             triangles and questions they prompt that illustrate the underlying 
                             utility of the triangle in managing relationships. does the introduction 
                             of a third make a relationship between two more manageable?